Suzy Says

OK. The turkey’s in the oven, the stuffing is made, the potatoes are peeled and cut up, the onion butter is made. Wine and beer are chilling in the refrigerator, along with various bags of things and stuff, such as segmented tangerines and thinly sliced red onions for the salad and sliced green onions (to be added to the butter with shallots and leeks for the mashed potatoes).

I didn’t intentionally create a onionpalooza for Thanksgiving dinner, but writing about it, I see that I have. I must be celebrating the fact that Jessica now likes onions. I was always amused by the fact that she would eat things like eel sushi but not onions.

Yesterday, Megan came by before work with a monstrous 22 pound organic turkey bought at a discount from the ever useful Gro, and a giant bag of russet potatoes (hence the peeling). She bought mixed seasonal greens this morning after work – shopping at 6 am on Thanksgiving Day is the only way to go – and sent them over via Rob this morning, when I was elbow deep in stuffing and rocking out to AC/DC. A girl needs music if she’s going to cook that much that early.

After the cooking was under control, I headed over to my brother’s place in the beater car, so I could drop off a bucket of compost and pick up some wood for the outdoor fireplace, along with our Mom’s roasting pan for Turkzilla. It turns out that my brother is coming down with something, and that Dave is sick, so our numbers keep shrinking while the turkey keeps getting bigger. More wine for me!

Back home, I decanted the wood and then cleaned up the house (including deconstructed, non-turkey bird) to the best of my limited patience, and then turned my attention to the outdoors, moving the cars out of the way, moving the outdoor fireplace near the seating area, cleaning up the remainder of construction debris, curling up the hoses, sweeping off the porch, etc. I am a little concerned that the rain forecast for tonight will arrive earlier than we’d like. Don’t get me wrong, we are all eagerly anticipating rain for the next few days, but I just hope it holds off until the guests, if any, have gone home.

About six hours after I started, I changed my clothes and curled my hair and now both the house and I are about as presentable as we are going to get.

While I was doing all this, it occurred to me that even though things are not great right now, with unemployment rearing its ugly head and fears for the future all too real and all too scary, I still feel very thankful for what I have. I’m thankful for my family, my friends (including you, dear reader), my cats, my little house, the memories of my parents and grandparents, and the good things, both great and small, that happen every day.

A YEAR AGO:
One of those days. I see I drove the heap that day, too!